top of the food chain
sloane
It was the first time I had slept through the night since I got the news about Adam. Maybe it was the rocking of the boat, the way the waves tossed you ever so gently, like a baby in his mother’s arms. I woke up that morning to the sun coming through the porthole in my room, and praise the Lord, I missed my children. I wanted to squeeze them close to me, run my fingers through their hair, and kiss the tips of their little noses. The hardest part about Adam being gone was the numbness, the coldness, the horrible fear. My emotions had shut off. With the water surrounding me and the light streaming in, I felt like a mother again. I felt my heart ache for my boys. I felt stronger, cleansed, as only the sky as seen from the sea can do.
I walked up the stairs and out through the main cabin. I could see my bikini-clad sisters, sipping mimosas at the table. “There’s our girl!” Emerson exclaimed when she saw me. Even in my self-absorbed sorrow, I couldn’t help but notice how prominent her collarbones seemed.
She handed me a croissant. “They’re so divine that even Caroline ate one.”
I knew she wanted me to respond with fake shock that Caroline had eaten anything resembling a calorie and play into the repartee. But I couldn’t smile and laugh and pretend nothing was wrong. I didn’t have the energy. Caroline didn’t say anything, but she pointed to the corner, where they had set up an easel and a canvas, along with brushes and paints.
I shook my head. “No.”
“You know it will make you feel better,” Caroline said.
She wasn’t wrong. I looked out at the sun glazing the blue water, the wind cooling the air. It would make me feel better. Eventually. But first it would absolutely wring me out, gut me to the point I wasn’t sure I would survive, and bring me, like a chemo patient, to the brink of death before reviving me at the last second. I wasn’t there yet.
Emerson reached for my hand. “Where’s Viv?” I asked.
“Sleeping,” Caroline replied. “Reveille is going to be a rude awakening for her.”
Reveille. Each morning, at six thirty sharp, those notes rang out through post with a shock of cannon fire that startled me every time. The memory made me homesick.
I looked at Caroline, and for the first time in a while, I really saw her, the girl she had been, my best friend, my partner in crime, my support system in everything I did. She had saved me so many times. It seemed fitting that she would be trying to save me again.
I looked out over the water, and it hit me. “Does anyone else find it a little strange that we’re on a boat called the Miss Ansley when our mother mercilessly dumped the poor man?” They knew I was the only one not totally thrilled about Mom dating after Dad passed away. When we were young, it horrified me to my very core, and I still had my misgivings. But we all loved Jack. He was perfect for our mother.
“Well, Mom wants to be available for all of us . . .” Caroline said.
She trailed off, and I felt a pang of guilt because taking care of all of us meant taking care of me. But my husband was MIA. For once, I felt like I deserved the extra attention.
“Do you think she’s scared or something?” Emerson picked up. “Of falling in love again? Of losing another man she loves?”
Caroline bit her lip. “I try not to think about it because when I do, I come up with so many far-fetched reasons why she won’t be with Jack.”
I cocked my head to the side. Maybe it was my near comatose state, but I hadn’t thought about anything like that. “Caroline, your imagination is too vivid.”
Even though she was trying to be upbeat and witty, she seemed distant. “Car, you OK?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s just sad, you know?”
“What’s sad?”
“Everything. Mom loves Jack, yet she thinks she can’t be with him. You love Adam, and he’s MIA. I love James, and he betrayed me . . .” She bit her lip, like she always did when she was trying to hold back tears, and looked out over the side of the boat.
“I hate seeing you like this, Caroline,” Emerson said. “It’s your life and your decision, but I just feel like you should move on. It’s not worth being miserable over.”
Caroline and I shared a look. Emerson wasn’t a mother. She hadn’t been married. She didn’t understand.
“Em,” Caroline said, “have a brand-new baby and let some judge tell you he and your other kid are going to be away from you every other weekend and Wednesday nights, and then call me.”
Emerson rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. You two are wives and mothers, and I don’t understand anything. I just wonder if maybe it shouldn’t be easier.”
I wanted to point out that her relationship with Mark didn’t seem terribly easy, but I bit my tongue. Caroline rolled her eyes.
“The hard part,” Caroline said, “is that I still love James so much. But it will always be different now. For all these years I’ve had this sort of warm glow of knowing he loves me more than anything. And now it’s gone. I’m mourning the life I lost.”
She looked at me and winced. “I’m sorry. Poor choice of words.”
I crossed my legs on the bench and shook my head. “No. You’re mourning. I get that. Just because I’m going through something doesn’t mean you aren’t going through your own thing.”
“So what if you make something new?” Emerson asked, and I finally felt like she was getting it.
“You didn’t exactly help with that, Emerson.”
She looked shocked. “How does this have anything to do with me?”
Caroline laughed incredulously. “Are you serious? Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you played Edie Fitzgerald in a movie and made the media storm
